Our Life In Pictures (Feb - April)

Brace yourselves for a bunch of random pictures that will be a highlight reel of our life until May. May is whole 'nother story. May was crazy. May was insane in the membrane!! I will have to do a whole post on May.

Any who....

February was mostly low-key other than we tackled the cosmetic remodel of our bathroom. We knew we'd be listing our home again as soon as it was Spring so we wanted to get the bathroom done in February. We did it!! We updated the walls, flooring, vanity, lights and mirror. Michael did most of the hard work and I came in and painted it all. We hope it helps sell this place!!

Jonah made it into the Popcorn Club at school. They have to know 50 words by sight.

I got a free Saturday to spend at a Ladies Day in Dickson, TN with my Mom, sister-in-law and several other ladies at my church.

My Mom a.k.a. Nana got to read to Jonah's class for Read To Me Day.

Easter festivities at school. I went to the Valentine's party so Michael attended Jonah's Easter Egg hunt.

After Easter, we had Spring Break and went camping for a week at Piney Campground in the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. It's just 20 minutes from our house and we always love camping there. Some of our friends came to visit us on the pretty days.

More Easter pictures from our church's egg hunt.

The Easter bunny didn't forget Jonah and Haley!

This was the view from our campsite looking at Kentucky Lake. I want to go back already!

This was the best shot we got of us all at Easter lunch. Maybe next time everyone will be looking and smiling normal! Haha!

I don't have many pictures from April yet. Jonah started up tee-ball again in April and school was really busy with testing. Everyone's doing great and we are so glad it's finally Summertime now!!

January Catch-Up

I just scrapped my January project life layouts and thought it would be easier to just share those here. We didn't do a whole lot in January, which was welcome because December was cray-cray. We did buy the supplies and start on our bathroom redo. We did a ship-lap type treatment on the walls and redid the flooring and trim. We put in a new vanity, mirror and lights as well. It was just a quick update since we will be listing our house on the market very soon and that room was one we never got around to updating.

Also, Jonah had an awards program at school one night. We knew he had already gotten into the ABC and Mighty Math club but he also ended up getting a library good behavior award. We were very proud of him!!

We got a couple of good snows during January and so a lot of time was spent at home waiting for clear roads while trying to get work done too. Yay!

Let's Catch Up!

I am going to try to keep this minimal and still do a quick catch-up of life since I stopped blogging back in August of 2015. So here goes!

First of all, in July, Jonah turned 5 and then Haley turned 2 on August 5th! We had a joint party this year and did a circus/carnival theme. We had it at our church's fellowship hall and set up small carnival games for them to play, we had popcorn and cupcakes. It was a lot easier just planning one party but I think this year we'll do two smaller, family parties since they are into totally different stuff.

Right after their birthdays it was time to send Jonah off to Kindergarten. Wah!!! He has done great with school and loves it. He is reading a lot of words as I type this. I just can't believe that we are rounding the corner of being done with Kindergarten already! It's going by too fast. One of my closest friends is his teacher this year, so that definitely has made it easier on us all.

In September our family welcomed the newest member, Adeline Rice! My brother, Kyle and sister-in-law, Mandy had their first child and she is the sweetest and happiest baby ever. She is just adorable and we are all loving having her around. Jonah gets so excited when he knows we will see her. Haley is warming up to her too. We just lover her to pieces!

Halloween was really fun and different this year. This year we decided to camp at Piney and do trick-or-treating there on Halloween weekend. It was a little rainy but still very fun. Jonah dressed up as Marshall from Paw Patrol. Haley ended up NEEDING to take a nap at trick-or-treat time so I never got a good picture of her in her kitty cat costume. She really did not get Halloween at all this year. I think she will be good to go next year though.

November was a fun month but I don't have hardly any pictures from it! Womp-womp! Oh well I know we did stuff but I didn't even post much to IG that month. December made up for it though! Jonah loved seeing Santa, Haley wasn't having any of it. We did all the typical holiday stuff. Santa brought Haley a play kitchen and Jonah a super highway train set and a Miles from Tomorrowland Stelosphere. They got WAY too much stuff...as usual!!

I'll update about January through February soon!

Is this thing even on?!

Well....long time no blog!! I am still alive and going to try to get back into posting family updates. I thought a good a time as any was today, to link up with Kelly at Kelly's Korner as she starts back up the blogging series called Show Us Your Life!

Let me introduce myself. I'm April and I'm a thirty-something Christian, wife and Mom of 2 living in rural, middle Tennessee. I live in the town I grew up in with one-stoplight.

I have been happily married to Michael for going on 12 years (this June!). Michael is a wonderful provider and father. We are pretty much opposites in personality (I'm quiet, he is more extroverted). He enjoys his job as a mechanic on firetrucks and other emergency vehicles. He is a triathlete and a deacon at our church. I am very proud of the man he has become over the years of our marriage and give all the glory to God.

We have 2 precious gifts from God. Jonah is 5 and in Kindergarten. Haley is 2.5 and is learning more and more words each day. They both bring us immense joy everyday and teach us as we try to teach them.

I mentioned that I'm a Christian, first and foremost. I became a Christian in 8th grade and was baptized for the remission of my sins. I thank God everyday for the amazing and awesome gift of His Son, Jesus.

I am a full-time, work-from-home Mom in a consulting and accounting industry. I love it! My daughter stays with my Mom each day while I work. I also am an avid reader and magazine hoarder. I love to do crafts when I have time and I know a little bit of sewing (but don't have much time to do it now days). I also teach the nursery Sunday school class at my church and I'm actively involved in our ladies ministry and our youth programs.

We recently got into camping in our new-to-us fifth-wheel camper and are ready to kick off camping season very soon!

I hope you will follow along and I would love to follow more family blogs, too! Thanks for stopping by and God bless!

Catching Up: June

Well that was a long break! I have a lot to catch this blog up with. Jonah and Haley have had birthdays, we've made a major purchase and Jonah started school!

For now though, I will catch up the month of June. Here are the highlights!

- Jonah finished up the tee-ball season and had a great time! He got really good at making contact with the coach pitches!

- Our church held it's VBS and the kids had a great time in their classes. I taught Haley's age for a couple of the nights.

- We bought the building supplies and Michael and my Dad built the kids a new play set. This was their joint birthday gift from us.

- Michael and I celebrated 11 years of marriage with a quick weekend trip to Murray, KY and then to spend the night in Eddyville, KY at Maple Hill Bed & Breakfast. It was a nice and relaxing break!

Catching Up: May

The blog has been way on the back burner. I may even just quit trying here soon. I am trying to get caught back up on my monthly scrapbook layouts for the kid's books. So here is May and hopefully I'll have June done this weekend too!

Jonah's Preschool Graduation

Last Thursday was Jonah's last day of Preschool and they had a little program for all the 4 year olds. It was the cutest thing ever to see all those kids perform. The teachers do such a great job. Each class came out and did a song. I was so amazed that hardly any of the kids seemed nervous at all to be on the stage under those lights.

Jonah's class was the last one to come out and perform and they did a song called Run to Jesus and they had to run in place and clap their hands. Then the whole group did a couple of songs together. They did This Little Light of Mine and Jesus Love Me. Then they did a silly song where they had to do different moves and by the end everyone had to close their eyes and stick out their tongue and sing. Well Jonah was in the back in the middle and he didn't do any of the moves at all. I know he had to have practiced it. We asked him why he didn't participate and he said "he didn't want to stick his bottom out." LOL Well they all did look pretty silly!!

Then they called each of their names to receive their Bible. This was not a rinky-dink Bible either! They each got a hard-cover ESV study Bible with a concordance and maps in the back. It has cross-references and everything. Easily a $40 Bible at the store! He loved getting that and asked us to read from it for several nights since then.

Overall, we could not be happier with the experience we had with this Christian preschool program! It went above anything I had imagined for Jonah and he has flourished and learned so much. I can tell tat he is just on the cusp of learning to read already. I am going to get some tips from my friend that is a Kindergarten teacher to see if I can get him started reading over the summer some....we'll see.

I know that he is ready both socially and intellectually now for Kindergarten. I just can't believe in a little over 2 months we will be starting school!!!

Jonah and his Frog classmates walking out to do their song.

 Doing the running part of the song.

And the clapping part...

 Lots of boys in his class!

Doing This Little Light of Mine.

This is basically how he looked during the entire "silly song". 

After his name was called.

Getting his Bible from his teacher.

The one and only family picture we managed to get after it was all over.